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  • 5 months ago
Both traditional systems and modern medicine use plants and sometimes animal products. So… are they the same? Not really. In this Truth N Trends episode, Sonia and Deepak unpack the big differences: isolating real active molecules vs using whole herbs, purity and dosage, placebo vs proof, safety issues (like heavy metals/contaminants), and the ethics of animal parts. With real examples—quinine, aspirin, artemisinin—we show how traditional knowledge becomes reliable medicine only when tested, standardized, and dosed correctly. Respect tradition, but trust evidence.

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Transcript
00:00welcome to truth and trends dear viewers deepak yesterday my uncle said modern medicine and
00:14ayurveda are basically the same both use plants so why not just use the leaf instead of a lab
00:21made pill sonia honestly i've heard that too if both use plants aren't they equal pills just
00:27sound like the expensive version of what anani used to give us great place to start first a small
00:34correction the word allopathy isn't what doctors call modern medicine it was coined by the founder
00:41of homeopathy to describe his opponents the accurate term is evidence-based medicine okay fair point but
00:50evidence-based or not the source is still nature right so chewing bark for pain versus taking a
00:56tablet same thing same origin different science traditional knowledge is a treasure chest of leads
01:03modern medicine identifies the actual active molecule like salicylic acid from willow bark leading to
01:10aspirin or quinine from cinchona for malaria or artemisinin from sweet wormwood then it purifies
01:17standardizes tests doses check side effects interactions and proves that it works better
01:24than placebo but why not keep the whole plant maybe the mix of compounds works together also isn't
01:32extracting in labs super expensive sometimes mixtures help and that's why standardized herbal extracts exist
01:40but raw whole plant has problems the amount of active compound varies by soil season part of plant drying
01:48method so dosage swings wildly and natural can still be toxic foxgloof has life-saving cardiac glycosides and
01:57serious risks aconite can be deadly purity and dose control save lives hmm variability makes sense but my
02:07aunt's katha really helped my sore throat last winter isn't that proof it's anecdote not proof you might have
02:14recovered anyway or the warmth and honey soothe symptoms or it was placebo your belief helped you
02:20feel better placebo is real but we can't build national health policy on it also some traditional
02:28formulations include heavy metals or contaminants without proper processing they can harm liver or kidneys
02:35and what about animal parts i've heard of remedies using horn snake parts even cow urine people say if it's
02:43traditional it must be safe two issues ethics and safety using animal parts can fuel poaching and
02:50zoonotic risks and without control trials we don't know benefit versus harm evidence-based medicine requires
02:58humane sourcing clear chemistry and proven efficacy if a traditional item truly works we can isolate its
03:06active make it sustainably and dose it safely that's the right path so if modern drugs came from plants
03:13what share are still natural i've heard sixty percent of medicines come from plants many medicines come
03:19from nature plants microbes marine life roughly a quarter of common drugs are directly plant derived
03:27and many more are inspired by natural molecules but are now synthesized for consistency and safety
03:34the key is in the plant label it's proof of benefit purity and the right dose got it origin
03:40is just act one the real story is testing standardization and safety so saying both use plants so both are same is oversimplifying
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